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The best part of '22 Jump Street' is the movie's end credits

By Jason Brockett

Incinemaniac

Posted:
07/03/2014 09:42:50 PM MDT

Quick, name a comedy sequel that was as funny as or funnier than the original. Time's up! You couldn't think of any, could you? You know why, right? Because there isn't any that exist. If you disagree, email me those movies that you believe are an exception. However, I do think there could be some potential movies that could break the barrier of horrible comedic sequels that we've seen in the past.

Earlier this year it was announced that they will be making a "Mrs. Doubtfire part 2," starring Robin Williams. Apparently, they have been trying to think of a way to bring back the loveable nanny for some time now. Hopefully the 20 years has given them enough time to think of a decent story line. Also, if you've been to the movies lately and if you're around 30 years old, you have probably seen and are excited for the new "Dumb and Dumber To," set to come out later this year. We won't even mention the disastrous "Dumb and Dumberer" movie they came out with back in 2003. Besides those two potential films, I can't for the life of me think of any comedy sequels that have been equally good as the original.

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Now, on the opposite side of that, I can think of several comedy sequels that were absolutely terrible.

In 1994 when "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" first came out, it launched Jim Carrey into super stardom. Then, a year later, based on the success of the first movie, they decided to release "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls," nowhere close to being as good as the original. Remember when "The Hangover" came out in 2009? It was the summer's biggest movie. Then, they decided to make two more, which may be some of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. Now, we have "22 Jump Street" starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, the sequel to last year's big screen adaptation of a television sitcom starring Johnny Depp and Richard Grieco. Last year's "21 Jump Street" was a pleasant surprise in what turned up to be a disastrous summer movie blockbuster season. Let's see if the sequel can hang with the success of last year's triumph.

"22 Jump Street" is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the same two responsible for last year's hit. The story finds Schmidt and Jenko, played by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum being reassigned by their boss Captain Dickson, played by Ice Cube. Based on their ability to crack the case at a local high school last year, the two have been tasked to infiltrate a local university after a girl was found dead from a new drug called, WHYFY. The much older looking boys move into the dorms and attempt to blend in with the student body. Jenko, the much more athletic built of the two, finds himself hanging out with the school's jocks after putting on the pads and proving himself on the football field. Schmidt, the fluffier of the two, attempts to mingle with the football players only to be treated poorly because of his lack of athleticism. Instead, Schmidt finds himself attending parties and poetry jams with some of the more artistic students at the university, one of which is Maya, played by Amber Stevens, an art major who also happens to be the daughter of Captain Dickson. Our two detectives find themselves growing apart with Jenko embracing his new found popularity as the school's star football player, albeit Schmidt being more in touch with his artistic side and a growing relationship with the boss's daughter. The boys begin questioning whether or not their bond and past experiences together are enough to keep their partnership focused on the matter at hand. "22 Jump Street" is rated R and has a running time of 1 hour and 52 minutes.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller did not do any script revisions because of their commitment to last year's "The Lego Movie." Instead, they decided to write the credits sequence at the end of the film, which I thought was more creative than the movie itself.

As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that I'm more irritable when it comes to wasting time. Because of my busy schedule at work, I really try to pick a movie that will keep me engaged. With my hatred for the summer movie blockbuster so grand, it's like pulling teeth trying to decide which movie to go to in hopes that I will walk out of the theater with a smile on my face. It rarely happens. Instead of going and watching Michael Bay's latest attempt to rejuvenate his Transformers franchise by adding Mark Wahlberg, who I think makes it more interesting with him being in the movie; I wasn't interested in spending almost three hours of my life watching the Transformers battle the dinobots. I know what you're thinking, "What else would you have done, Jason?" A ton of stuff! For example, my three year old is obsessed with the "Just Dance" game for the Wii. This kid's a dancing machine. Or, I could've allowed him to beat up on me because he thinks he's a Power Ranger, the Red Ranger to be specific. Either of those would work. Don't get me wrong, I love watching movies, so much that my grad program is in film studies, but the summer movie season has me gauging my eyes out. This past week I saw myself going into the theater knowing that I was probably going to be disappointed, and, I was right. It's so disheartening to see major film distributors who only care about making money consistently pollute movie theaters all over the country with garbage story lines. I've seen enough episodes of "Entourage" to know how the system works by now. What happened to one and done? I'm a product of the 1980's, where we saw great movies like, "The Three Amigos," "The Great Outdoors," "The Burbs," and "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." You know what was great about all these movies? For one, they were engaging; second, they never thought to make a sequel. I thought the first installment, "21 Jump Street" was a lot of fun, and it kept me engaged and didn't lack the continuity like "22 Jump Street" did.

Maybe I'm being too harsh; I still think that Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum work well together, but this screenplay was absolutely terrible. Whenever I read that both directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller didn't have a chance to revise the screenplay it all began to make sense. My question, why would they proceed with a project when the creative minds behind the film did not have the opportunity to make the appropriate changes? This whole movie seemed rushed and poorly put together.

Sure there were several scenes that made me laugh, but I would have preferred a decent story line that didn't have me considering exiting the building.

I had this strange feeling whenever I was watching the end credits that the directors knew this was a bad movie. In order to make up for such a bad screenplay, the directors decided to juice up the end credits to squash everybody's hope of a third installment. My favorite part of the "22 Jump Street" was the end credits where the directors actually had a chance to write the sequence. There was an obvious distinction between the two styles of writing from the screenplay to the end credits.

Overall, I would definitely not recommend anyone going and watching this movie over the Fourth of July weekend. Instead, wait until this one airs on cable and there's nothing else on television. Here's an idea, go and check out Eric Bana's new "Deliver Us From Evil," it's based on actual events and looks awesome.